Making Light: *Spoilers* Paranormal Activity *Spoilers* ::: January 06, 2010, 04:11 PM Teresa asks: ...why are there so many demonologists in the San Diego area? Ask Stephan Zielinski? Squee! --- Making Light: *Spoilers* Paranormal Activity *Spoilers* ::: January 07, 2010, 08:52 AM Teresa wrote: Stephan, do I have any hope of cracking that? Give it a go. I found it surprisingly easy for such a short cryptogram. --- Making Light: The tastemakers of tomorrow ::: January 07, 2010, 04:22 PM Kid Bitzer@15: the way that bubbles naturally solve surface-minimization problems I feel compelled to mention that bubble films only give you a local minimum, which is not all that hard on a computer. Finding a global minimum is NP-hard, and bubbles don't help. The distinction is often blurred in popular speculative math of the sort one shouldn't cite. --- Article 1023603 of rec.arts.sf.fandom From: Dan Hoey Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom Subject: Re: Kurt Gödel PROVED that ALL math must be kept within certain parameters Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2010 18:39:34 -0500 Keith F. Lynch wrote: > Seth wrote: >> All _sufficiently powerful but not too large_ formal systems are >> incomplete. > Not too large? A large formal system can be both consistent and > complete? Please tell me more. Assuming a model M of some theory in the "sufficiently powerful" realm, we could define a formal system whose axioms are exactly the true statements of M. Such a system would be "too large" in that it has no finite axiomization. Dan --- Making Light: Open thread 134 ::: January 12, 2010, 02:11 PM I've got my love to keep me warm. Oh temperature! Amor\303\251! --- ErfWiki Talk:Lady Sylvia Lazarus But doesn't the poem where she says she's level 6 come after she killed Ossomer and leveled? -Dan Hoey 01:15, 13 January 2010 (UTC) --- ErfWiki ErfWiki:Maintenance Portal Long term stuff * Make Plot Summary more detailed as Rob wants * Find and add Erfworld cameos to Erf Cameos. * Please figure out how to make {{Template:ID}} work to help in wikifying script text. Or explain the really easy way to do what needs to be done -Dan Hoey 02:53, 13 January 2010 (UTC) --- Making Light: Open thread 134 ::: January 15, 2010, 02:46 PM B. Durbin @292: Besides Combat, there's a liquid called Terro that works well on ants. They gobble it up and take it home to kill the colony. --- Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer From: Dan Hoey Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:44:04 -0500 Subject: ZipInputStream bug I was going to make a farm of data files that mostly contain bytes, but I wanted to make it possible to store 32-bit ints just in case. So I tried to use zip-encoding to make the sizes smaller in the usual case. Unfortunately, *some* of the data files don't read back correctly. Here is an example of a 4096-byte file that writes correctly with ZipOutputStream, but does not read back correctly with ZipInputStream. If I manually extract the zipped file, the data is correct. Is anyone maintaining the Zip utilities? Dan Hoey haoyuep at aol.com ============================> cut here <======================= import java.io.FileInputStream; import java.io.FileOutputStream; import java.util.zip.ZipInputStream; import java.util.zip.ZipOutputStream; import java.util.zip.ZipEntry; class ZipFail { static int[] testData = {17,33,16,17,33,16,17,33,23,22,33,23,22,33,16,22,38,3,37, 38,16,37,38,23,34,51,16,32,2,5,32,17,23,32,17,23,34,17,16, 39,17,23,32,17,23,32,17,23,32,17,23,32,20,23,32,17,33,32, 17,33,32,17,33,31,17,33,31,17,33,16,22,33,16,32,33,16,32, 33,16,32,33,16,32,46,16,32,46,16,32,17,16,32,17,16,32,22, 23,32,27,23,32,27,33,32,20,16,32,20,33,32,20,33,32,5,33, 32,3,33,32,17,33,16,17,33,4,60,33,4,51,33,4,32,33,2,32,33, 4,32,17,2,32,17,16,32,17,16,32,17,2,32,17,16,37,17,16,34, 5,16,34,5,16,23,5,16,23,17,35,32,17,33,32,17,33,23,17,33, 23,17,33,23,3,33,23,17,33,23,17,33,16,17,33,16,17,33,16, 17,33,23,9,33,16,39,22,16,34,22,16,32,22,16,32,17,16,32, 17,23,37,17,31,37,17,8,32,19,23,39,19,31,16,17,10,16,17, 31,16,17,33,23,17,33,5,9,8,5,9,35,18,9,36,18,17,33,5,17, 36,16,30,38,18,34,22,16,34,22,3,32,22,3,32,22,3,37,22,16, 34,22,16,9,17,16,34,2,38,34,17,38,39,17,38,42,2,8,23,17, 33,16,17,35,16,17,36,16,39,33,3,39,33,3,37,33,3,37,33,16, 37,38,16,34,8,16,34,17,16,34,17,16,34,17,16,34,17,8,32,17, 16,32,17,23,32,17,23,39,17,43,32,17,36,16,17,23,16,17,38, 16,17,51,16,17,38,29,17,38,16,22,33,21,22,52,16,17,2,16, 22,33,16,22,51,16,14,52,16,32,17,23,32,17,23,32,17,23,12, 17,16,32,2,23,14,17,16,32,17,16,32,5,33,32,17,33,32,17,33, 32,17,33,16,17,33,16,17,15,16,17,33,16,17,33,16,32,13,16, 32,13,16,32,33,9,32,17,9,14,17,16,32,17,16,14,17,16,14,17, 23,14,17,53,32,5,38,32,17,33,16,17,33,16,17,33,32,17,33, 14,17,33,16,17,33,23,17,33,16,17,33,16,32,33,16,17,33,16, 3,33,21,32,15,16,32,33,9,32,22,16,42,22,31,42,22,16,34,17, 16,37,22,2,32,22,31,32,22,2,39,22,16,39,17,8,23,17,8,23, 17,8,14,17,8,16,17,38,23,17,8,14,32,38,14,17,10,16,17,36, 16,52,33,16,45,38,16,32,22,16,34,17,16,45,17,16,39,17,16, 11,17,16,32,15,8,9,22,8,34,17,8,37,2,8,23,17,8,23,17,8,23, 17,38,16,22,8,23,27,33,23,17,33,23,30,36,18,30,22,3,34,22, 16,47,17,16,47,8,16,9,8,16,39,17,16,34,17,16,39,17,16,32, 17,53,39,17,33,32,17,33,32,17,43,32,17,36,32,17,38,39,17, 38,16,17,38,16,17,51,16,17,51,16,17,43,23,51,43,23,32,35, 16,22,13,16,14,17,16,32,17,16,32,17,16,32,17,16,32,22,16, 32,17,58,32,17,16,32,22,23,32,17,33,9,20,33,32,22,33,16, 22,33,16,22,33,16,17,15,3,17,15,16,22,15,16,52,15,23,32, 33,21,22,17,23,14,17,16,32,17,16,32,33,16,14,33,16,14,52, 16,14,57,16,14,17,16,14,2,16,32,17,33,14,17,15,32,5,15,14, 17,33,32,17,33,23,17,33,23,22,33,23,22,33,23,22,33,16,22, 33,16,32,33,16,14,33,16,32,15,16,32,33,16,14,22,16,14,22, 23,11,22,23,32,22,23,32,22,23,32,17,16,32,17,33,39,17,15, 37,17,15,23,17,33,16,17,35,23,17,38,23,17,33,16,17,33,16, 17,33,16,17,2,16,17,22,16,17,2,16,17,22,16,32,22,16,32,22, 16,11,22,16,9,15,16,9,17,8,9,17,31,11,17,44,3,17,16,39,17, 10,32,17,8,3,59,8,23,17,8,23,17,33,16,17,10,23,17,33,16, 17,38,16,9,38,23,9,13,23,32,38,16,32,22,16,39,15,8,32,17, 8,9,22,16,9,15,16,32,17,8,32,17,8,39,22,8,39,17,8,23,22, 8,23,27,8,16,17,64,16,17,33,16,17,51,23,17,33,14,9,8,16, 9,38,23,9,41,16,9,22,16,32,17,16,9,17,16,9,17,16,32,15,53, 14,15,53,39,22,53,14,17,46,42,17,23,14,17,46,14,17,44,12, 17,15,12,17,15,14,17,15,14,17,15,4,17,13,4,22,15,16,22,33, 23,22,33}; ZipFail() { } static void test(byte[] buf) { for(int i=0;i>j)&0xff); if(buf[i*4 + j/8] != expected) { throw new RuntimeException ("buf["+i+"*4+"+j+"/8]="+buf[i*4 + j/8] +" not "+expected); } } } } static void usage() { System.out.println("Usage: java ZipFail write|readzip|read"); System.out.println(" 'write' creates test.zip with single"); System.out.println(" entry test.dat"); System.out.println(" 'readzip' reads the zip file and"); System.out.println(" compares data with what was"); System.out.println(" written."); System.out.println(" 'read' reads extracted test.dat file"); System.out.println(" and compares data."); System.out.println("Bug is demonstrated by success of"); System.out.println("'read' and failure of 'readzip'."); } public static void main(String[] args) { if(args.length != 1) { usage(); return; } if(args[0].equalsIgnoreCase("write")) { try { ZipOutputStream zo = new ZipOutputStream (new FileOutputStream("test.zip")); zo.setLevel(9); zo.putNextEntry(new ZipEntry("test.dat")); byte[] buf=new byte[4*testData.length]; for(int i=0;i>j)&0xff); } } zo.write(buf,0,4*testData.length); zo.close(); } catch (Exception ex) { throw new RuntimeException (ex); } return; } if(args[0].equalsIgnoreCase("readzip")) { try { ZipInputStream zi = new ZipInputStream (new FileInputStream("test.zip")); zi.getNextEntry(); byte[]buf = new byte[4*testData.length]; zi.read(buf,0,4*testData.length); zi.close(); test(buf); } catch (Exception ex) { throw new RuntimeException (ex); } } if(args[0].equalsIgnoreCase("read")) { try { FileInputStream fi = new FileInputStream("test.dat"); byte[]buf = new byte[4*testData.length]; fi.read(buf,0,4*testData.length); fi.close(); test(buf); } catch (Exception ex) { throw new RuntimeException (ex); } return; } usage(); } } ============================> cut here <======================= --- Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer From: Dan Hoey Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:38:59 -0500 Subject: Re: ZipInputStream bug Steven Simpson wrote: > Dan Hoey wrote >> zi.read(buf,0,4*testData.length); > Check the return value of this call. It does not guarantee to fill > the buffer, but tells you how much. Thanks a million. It's working now. Dan --- Making Light: Open thread 135 ::: February 12, 2010, 04:12 PM Lila @576: BTW, on behalf of my fellow Northeast Georgians, I would just like to say: WHERE THE HELL IS OUR SNOW?? We've been wondering whose s*** this was that got delivered to DC. Come on up and get it. --- Making Light: Open thread 135 ::: February 16, 2010, 12:14 PM Diatryma #697 and David Harmon #699: For the OR operation, I'd suggest MAX, rather than "+", if it's available. Incidentally, if Excel has mathematical taste, you could use GCD for OR and LCM for AND (remembering that for purposes of divisibility, 0 is greater than 1 (or any other positive integer)). But I wouldn't trust it to work, it's just fun to consider. Lattice enjoy it. --- Making Light: Patrick Roscoe, famous bad example ::: April 19, 2010, 12:28 PM Duncan J Macdonald @186: "Lizard" beating "Spock" can only occur if "Lizard" is actually "Spock" in a "Lizard" suit, and the original "Spock" is a "Lizard" in a "Spock" suit. This is presumably why Sam Kass calls his invention Rock-Paper-Scissors-Spock-Lizard. I have to agree that RPSLS sounds better than RPSSL, but it's unfortunate that people have made the change without changing "rock crushes lizard poisons Spock smashes scissors decapitate lizard eats paper disproves Spock vaporizes rock" to "rock hits Spock defaces paper chokes lizard jams scissors stab Spock pinches lizard mounts rock" or the like. --- Making Light: Be A Sex-Writing Strumpet ::: April 20, 2010, 01:22 PM Bill Stewart @160: The Leet Key add-on has been updated to the current FireFox (3.6.3). --- Making Light: Pvt. M. C. Mayfield, A. Co. 356 Inf. 2189159 ::: April 28, 2010, 01:13 PM Teresa @ 40: I'm more than familiar with the history of Gary Farber's collection, and I've heard Moshe's stories about the last despairing salvage attempts at Joy and Sandy Sanderson's house. In case anyone else is curious about the latter, I found Moshe's Corflu GOH speech (as reprinted in Littlebrook) on efanzines. --- Making Light: Open thread 139 ::: April 28, 2010, 03:01 PM Raphael @ 271, as far as I can google, the Microchip Consent Act of 2010 still has not yet been passed by the Georgia House of Representatives. Perhaps the legislators will come to their senses and amend the act so that it applies only to U. S. citizens. --- Making Light: Open thread 139 ::: May 07, 2010, 02:15 PM On the dinosodomy Sidelight: Good to see the meme is still carrying on. By the way, I haven't seen a fluorospherical mention of the band Funeral Sickness, who recorded a song titled Dinosaur Sodomy. (The lyrics have naughty words in them.) --- Article 1029760 of rec.arts.sf.fandom From: Dan Hoey Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom Subject: Re: May Day 2010 in Greece Date: Fri, 07 May 2010 21:49:05 -0400 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Michael Benveniste wrote: > This point is made by T-shirt as well: > http://www.zazzle.com/polyamory_is_wrong_tshirt-235838933475364492 In Tom Stoppard's play _The Invention of Love_, there's an exchange between A. E. Housman and his friend Chamberlain: Chamberlain: We belong to a sort of secret society, the Order of Chaeronea, like the Sacred Band of Thebes. Actually it\222s more like a discussion group. We discuss what we should call ourselves. \221Homosexuals\222 has been suggested. AEH: Homosexuals? Chamberlain: We aren\222t anything till there\222s a word for it. AEH: Homosexuals? Who is responsible for this barbarity? Chamberlain: What\222s wrong with it? AEH: It\222s half Greek and half Latin! Chamberlain: That sounds about right. Dan --- Making Light: Open thread 140 ::: May 14, 2010, 04:40 PM On Hall & Oates video in Particles, there's interesting info in an interview Oates did last year at losanjealous.com. It seems H&O didn't really want to do the lipsync video (for a teenage TV dance show), so they camped it up. Oates says, They actually didn\342EUR(TM)t air it; they wouldn\342EUR(TM)t air it. But we had it this whole time, and eventually I leaked it out to the internet, \342EUR(TM)cause I just thought the world should see it. It made my day. I especially like the disappearing, reappearing hookah on the table. At first I thought the device at 2:03 was another pipe, but apparently it's a musical instrument. --- Wikipedia Talk:Parang Query on sorrel ambiguity When parranderos are given sorrel, is it the leaf vegetable sorrel, the hibiscus relative known as Roselle or Jamaican sorrel, the hibiscus tea mentioned in the Sorrel (disambiguation), or something else? -Dan Hoey 16:34, 17 May 2010 (UTC) --- Making Light: Today's literary pop quiz ::: May 26, 2010, 10:29 AM Carol Kimball: The OED has bishop with the meaning "To file and tamper with the teeth of (a horse) so as to make him look young; to improve his appearance by deceptive arts." Supposedly named after someone who did this. --- Making Light: Open thread 141 ::: June 01, 2010, 02:20 PM Janet @113 (&Lee @118): "If you stopped tellin' people it's all sorted out after they're dead, they might try sortin' it all out while they're alive." If memory serves, this is an argument advanced by characters in Delany's The Einstein Intersection for why people in the rational future (the book's setting) consider the ancient (to them) religions to be immoral. At the time I read it, I thought the argument was that final nail so plainly needed for Xtianity's coffin. Soon enough, though, I discovered that people who believed in life after death were strangely unconvinced by the argument. Even worse, I found myself at a friend's funeral starting to believe in life after death. I was shocked. I got better, but it taught me something about how well we can fool ourselves when we have a mind to. --- Newsgroups: sprouts-theory From: Dan Hoey Date: Tue, 01 Jun 2010 20:05:37 -0400 Subject: Re: 4 spots = {*3,{*1,*2,{*3,{*2}}}} Thanks for running cgsuite on this, Jean-François. One minor clarification, though: On 6/1/10 12:40 PM, Jean-François Peltier wrote: > ... converges at heap-7 (7 instances of the starting component 4-spots) Actually, the heap game is calculated by linearizing the game *[(2[/1]21)3], and defines only seven sizes of heaps: heap-1 = *[1] (player may remove one token), heap-2 = *[2] (player may remove one or two tokens), heap-3 = *[3] (player may remove one, two, or three tokens), heap-4 = *[2/] (player may remove two tokens), heap-5 = *[2[/1]] (player may remove one or two tokens), heap-6 = *[2[/1]21] (player may remove one, four, or five tokens), and heap-7 = *[(2[/1]21)3] (player may remove one or four tokens). So convergence at heap-7 actually means convergence at any number of copies of heap-7, and is the only kind of convergence possible. That's what happens when you calculate the misère quotient of a game (or a finite number of games) rather than of a HeapRule that can apply to arbitrarily large heaps. Dan --- Newsgroups: talk.bizarre From: Dan Hoey Date: Tue, 01 Jun 2010 21:03:09 -0400 Subject: Re: raged and the bodies stank Julian F Waldby wrote: > I shouted out who killed the Kennedys, when after all it was > Jacqueline O'Nassis and the mob. > Hi. I was toad that it was me and Mick Jagger. Which one of us is Jackie and which one is the mob? Dan --- Making Light: Open thread 141 ::: June 14, 2010, 11:25 AM Love that particle on find-and-replace, not least because it has comments with links to other find-and-replace screwups, most notably the Homosexualization of Tyson Gay by the American Family Association, which comes equipped with classic corporate denial: American Family Association spokeswoman Cindy Roberts in Tupelo, Miss., told us, "I think it was just a fluke." It's a relief to know that there's no incompetent use of a text editor here, just a fluke. --- Making Light: Open thread 141 ::: June 14, 2010, 11:47 AM 779,780: And for clbutticists, a 1990 example: Back in the African American. --- Making Light: Open thread 141 ::: June 14, 2010, 02:40 PM Abi, thanks for linking to your sophisticated questions topic, not least because in it I found a link to Making Light's Tyson Homosexual topic from two years ago. How things do recur. And Cadbury Moose@784--thanks for the clarification. I should have read the article I linked to, which presented evidence for the appearance being a prank. --- Making Light: Open thread 142 ::: June 22, 2010, 12:15 PM Re 290: I'm trying to figure out how long and wide those pedestrian bridges are. Would they have shops in them? I'm probably being too literal. --- Making Light: "Both unjustified and unjustifiable" ::: June 22, 2010, 01:19 PM Dave Bell @133: That Times Square bomber is charged with "Attempted Use of a Weapon of Mass Destruction" The prosecution are doing their usual job of maximizing their accusations. But in this case, they are playing into the hands of the defendant, who is seeking martyrdom. I expect he would have pled guilty to attempted genocide of the US if it had been on offer. --- Making Light: Open thread 142 ::: July 02, 2010, 12:47 PM Heads up, abi. Your last six comments have a typo in your URL. --- Making Light: Open thread 142 ::: July 02, 2010, 05:08 PM Angiportus, I find great satisfaction in imagining a practical way of calculating the size of the ball that a vuvuzela could be melted into. Consider also measuring the energy content of a vuvuzela in a bomb calorimeter. Even better, would it be possible to pave a street by running over a bunch of vuvuzelas with a steamroller? --- Making Light: It's a scorcher ::: July 07, 2010, 03:18 PM I just heard of a coworker who died Monday, mowing the lawn. Not someone I knew well, but definitely a scythe too close for comfort. DC is brutal this summer. --- Making Light: Open thread 142 ::: July 08, 2010, 12:02 PM Kip @867--I'm pretty sure all the typewriter bell sounds are played by the orchestra's percussionist. I've heard some author^\342~\257 speak about doing a performance of "The Typewriter", and she said it was all about typing X and M and perhaps the carriage return sounds. -- ^\342~\257I can't remember who for sure, but perhaps Jane Yolen. --- Making Light: Open thread 142 ::: July 08, 2010, 12:38 PM Kip @867, me @868 -- Oops. It's clear that in that video, the typewriter percussionist is also playing the bell, as you observed. --- Making Light: Introducing Emily ::: July 09, 2010, 01:54 PM Even if you have to pay for the meals, they'll be in free flight once the plane starts going whirly. --- Making Light: Open thread 142 ::: July 09, 2010, 04:38 PM Marilee @843, Avram @876 @mdash; From my recollection of the printing biz, I guess that would be called "unleaded". But that's from the time of transition from hot lead to phototypesetting, so the terminology may be obsolete. --- Making Light: Writing workshops ::: July 12, 2010, 03:07 PM At least, I think it's for attracting search engines. --- Making Light: Lessons Learned ::: July 12, 2010, 03:35 PM A lot like the writing workshops spam, down to the single extra hyperlink. --- Making Light: Writing workshops ::: July 12, 2010, 03:41 PM Tom@46 -- Links amplify the SEO juice, making Google think there's a cross-site community interested in this stuff. Only one link, because if they put too many links in, then they get moderated. --- Making Light: Open thread 143 ::: July 12, 2010, 05:10 PM P J Evans@248: Do you mean you recognized the very set you had donated, or another copy of the same edition? --- Making Light: Open thread 143 ::: July 12, 2010, 06:13 PM Bruce@253 -- Funny. Funnier would be sodomitic dinosaurs, but zombies are funny enough. --- Making Light: Open thread 143 ::: July 12, 2010, 11:48 PM On "I-dosing", I think the Miami New Times has it right: Can specially designed ambient music trick high-chasing teens into a drug-like zen state? Probably not. Can this Miami Herald article trick you into think you're reading about something fascinating until you realize it's ultimately about nothing? Probably. The greatest thing about the silly season is when you get a debunking war. --- Making Light: "I write like who?" ::: July 20, 2010, 12:04 PM Abi@207: I find it a useful test to actually follow the links from the preview. Usually I use "Open link in new tab" so I don't need to rely on the "Back" button to get to the preview. I've occasionally neglected to test the links. To my regret. --- Making Light: Between the Wave and the Particle, a Benediction ::: August 02, 2010, 10:25 AM Am I the only one who finds it remarkable that one of the proprietors of Somes Bar General Store is named Chris Hatton? --- Making Light: Between the Wave and the Particle, a Benediction ::: August 02, 2010, 03:59 PM Abi@54 -- I thought they used red so that transubstantiation would be more plausible. --- Making Light: Between the Wave and the Particle, a Benediction ::: August 02, 2010, 04:01 PM I guess I'm really on Xopher's wavelength today. --- Making Light: Between the Wave and the Particle, a Benediction ::: August 02, 2010, 04:46 PM Abi@61 -- Yes, I should have realized that the wine/blood thing was more complicated than I was thinking. Especially since I realized there was a problem with the apparent nonfleshiness of the wafers. At least I learned a new meaning for accident, by accident. As Wyclif said (according to the OED), "No man durste seye til nou \303\276at accident is goddis body, for \303\276is newe word may haue no ground." --- Making Light: Open thread 144 ::: August 05, 2010, 10:05 AM The New Jim Crow particle (pointing to Leonard Pitts's article about Michelle Alexander's book) is 404. Fortunately, the article is all over the web, e.g. at the Reading Eagle. --- Making Light: Open thread 144 ::: August 05, 2010, 11:12 AM ddb@257 -- I suspect that the term jack to mean ice distillation is a back-formation. Applejack has been around since the early 1800s, while this sense of jack seems to be a recent invention. Even the sense of "to lift with a jack" isn't attested until 1885. Googling for applejack etymology, the only published hit I found was from The Gaelic Etymology of the Languages of Western Europe* by Charles MacKay, LL.D., 1877. He claims that the -jack is from Gaelic deoch, meaning "drink". ______________ * Or, in full, The Gaelic Etymology of the Languages of Western Europe and More Especially of the English and Lowland Scotch, and of their Slang, Cant, and Colloquial Dialects. --- Making Light: Me? I was the baker's daughter. You? ::: August 05, 2010, 11:58 AM Xopher@109 -- The ONLY ones? Don't forget their admirers in the tea potty. --- Making Light: Open thread 144 ::: August 05, 2010, 04:38 PM Lee@348 -- It was on All Things Considered yesterday. --- Making Light: Open thread 144 ::: August 05, 2010, 11:46 PM jnh@370 -- Teachers of the very young lose the advantage when their students grow another foot. --- Making Light: Open thread 144 ::: August 09, 2010, 04:31 PM Or we could send them a dinosaur. --- Making Light: Ground Zero mosque ::: August 11, 2010, 11:45 AM Steve C @ 24 -- This is about deeply felt emotions, on both sides. At least part of this is about whether someone with deeply felt emotions should be able to prevent someone else from building a mosque. There have always been people with emotional attachment to their beliefs who try to suppress the expression of other beliefs, and the first amendment is there to prevent such suppression. I feel some pretty deep emotions about the first amendment. --- Making Light: Open thread 144 ::: August 12, 2010, 05:31 PM In case anyone might find it useful, I can recommend the "NoScript" add-on to Firefox, which blocks sites from running Javascript or Flash unless you approve them. NoScript has kept me from running into the malware on ML (and probably elsewhere). On the other hand, the larger type/smaller type options aren't available to me unless I let ML run Javascript. --- Making Light: Ground Zero mosque ::: August 13, 2010, 03:47 PM Tom @ 140 -- "Cot" is a variant of "cottage", a place for your finger to dwell. If you are less anthropomorphic, your finger may have to stay in a stall. Oddly enough, the OED doesn't recognize "fitless", though it seems a reasonable coinage for "ill-fitting". --- Making Light: Ground Zero mosque ::: August 13, 2010, 04:53 PM Xopher -- The OED says "xiph" is an (obscure rare) word for the swordfish, Xiphias gladius. So a xipher could be a swordfish fisher (not to be confused with a spearfisher). --- Making Light: Ground Zero mosque ::: August 13, 2010, 06:30 PM ddb@142 -- No, "cot" derives from a lot of words about housing, and the OED doesn't show any pre-English words in the sense of "A case or protecting covering". The etymology of "coat" is all about wool and clothing. --- Making Light: Open thread 144 ::: August 16, 2010, 03:47 PM On the weird vinegar menu, my mom put granulated sugar in a lettuce leaf, moistened with vinegar. I think it had a cutesy name that I can't remember. --- Making Light: Between the Wave and the Particle, a Benediction ::: August 18, 2010, 04:55 PM Jacque@394: Some of those lines aren't sentences. Although they all end with periods. The meaning is rendered ambiguous. --- Making Light: Are you listening, Google? It's me, Teresa ::: August 18, 2010, 06:12 PM Dave@107 -- The "worst campaign ad" particle points to a youtube video that got marked private, which leads to the behavior you see. There are other copies on youtube, or you could google for "demon sheep". --- Making Light: Open thread 145 ::: August 19, 2010, 10:10 AM Xopher @ 37 -- The meaning of "new" can be surprising. A street named "New Street" is usually the second oldest in town. I've noticed that "new" generally means "second oldest" in some other contexts. File names come to mind. --- Making Light: Messing about in boats ::: August 20, 2010, 09:54 AM Serge@9, Ginger@10: The barque is worse than the boat. --- Making Light: Open thread 145 ::: August 20, 2010, 12:30 PM Tom @ 144 -- While she didn't apply the word to a person, I interpreted her repetitive chanting as actual use, with intention to be offensive. She deserves 8 million hardbound copies of the first amendment. --- Making Light: Open thread 145 ::: August 20, 2010, 02:33 PM Tom @ 147,150 -- You are distinguishing between the use of an offensive word "in the sense of using its meaning" and the mention of an offensive word for the purpose of discussion. I believe this case is a third way of using an offensive word, without regard to its traditional meaning, but with the intention of giving offense by the use of the word. I'm having a hard time expressing how I believe the third usage is offensive in a way that the second is not. Perhaps it's the general feeling that it's right to take offense when someone tries to be offensive, because otherwise they will try harder. --- Making Light: Open thread 145 ::: August 20, 2010, 05:21 PM Syd @ 165 -- I am not convinced she is surprised by the reaction. She may have courted the reaction, including the termination of her contract with CNN, in order to gain victim credentials for her next scheme. Race-baiting credentials, too. --- Making Light: Open thread 145 ::: August 24, 2010, 01:03 PM Alex@369 -- I think you mean seven gates. --- Making Light: Open thread 145 ::: August 30, 2010, 12:20 PM Marilee @758 -- Thanks for the link to the article on money smuggling. I appreciate it mostly because I had never heard of, nor even imagined the existence of cash-sniffing dogs. It's like a parallel to Rule 32. If it exists, there is a dog trained to smell it. Next up: drug-sniffing dog porn. Followed closely by drug-sniffing dog porn-sniffing dogs. --- Making Light: Open thread 145 ::: August 31, 2010, 11:55 AM Emily H @ 914 -- ... not to be confused with a "day spa and body shop". --- Making Light: Yo, Wocky Jivvy, Wergle Flomp-- ::: September 01, 2010, 09:19 AM Hundreds of hits on Google say it's spam. --- Making Light: Open thread 146 ::: September 01, 2010, 09:48 AM Carol Maltby @ 79 -- It's greek (or greeked) in the sense of "placeholder text". --- Making Light: Open thread 146 ::: September 01, 2010, 12:40 PM praisegod barebones @103 -- I'd guess that the phrase "Greek to me" would be more likely the origin of the term "greeked text". According to wikipedia, Graecum est; non legitur was used by medieval scribes, and "it was Greek to me" appears in Shakespeare. --- Making Light: Open thread 146 ::: September 01, 2010, 02:03 PM Bombie @ 107: Aren't 'greeked' texts like lorem ipsum derived from some actual Latin components? Funny fuzzy terminology. Yes, and this incongruous state of affairs was put to humorous use in a recent Particle. A necktie using Latin words was described as Greek. Hilarity ensued. --- Making Light: Bending the arc ::: September 03, 2010, 12:27 PM Back to the original topic, NPR had a segment last night about Theodore Parker, the 19th century abolitionist and Unitarian minister from whom Martin Luther King got "the arc of the moral universe." Parker's phrase "a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people," from an 1850 sermon, has also been retooled for a more famous speech. --- Making Light: Open thread 146 ::: September 03, 2010, 04:29 PM Relevant to a discussion here a few months ago, here's a comic strip that tells us where vuvuzelas come from. --- Making Light: Introducing Emily ::: September 10, 2010, 05:00 PM Russ@174 -- Fine use of the colon, but the way I remember it, you're not supposed to capitalize the phrase after the colon. That may be more of a rule for British usage, though. --- Making Light: Open thread 146 ::: September 10, 2010, 05:10 PM Summer Storms @628 -- I can't answer your question, though I just spent half a week with a real cold, so something's going around. But I really liked "WWTFD", mostly for the misleading "WTF". WTFWTFD? --- Wikipedia Talk:Characteristic subgroup Sentence fragment removed Section 2 ended with "Normality" is not transitive but Characteristic is transitive. So when transitivity will hold for Normal Subgroups?? If H Char K and K normal in G then H normal in G. I removed the fragmentary question because it did not seem to impart any information. -Dan Hoey 16:46, 14 September 2010 (UTC) --- Making Light: Open thread 146 ::: September 15, 2010, 03:22 PM joann #839 -- And for all those nook cozies and tea cozies and what-all cozies when they aren't in use, maybe you could keep them in a cozy cozy. --- Making Light: Over Kaas ::: September 16, 2010, 03:04 PM Serge@142 -- That's why they call them "makers". --- Making Light: Russia Invades Georgia ::: September 22, 2010, 10:35 AM I'm glad Terry can read it. I threw it at Babelfish and got Question in the theme. Indeed oil they rock straight from under us, it is possible to state. This oil in the essence general, [tk] we all live in the territory RF, simple whom probability this to in other words completely make, but in whom that does not have any. So is it possible to us as first to obtain for this although that? well, price lowered by the gasoline for "[svoikh]" inhabitants RF, and to raise to the export or that the similar. Or [eto] it is correct, that who on these bore holes works that the money and are obtained? I hope my correctly thought it reported. I guess the meat is rotten and the vodka is watered. --- Making Light: You take this sheep, see... ::: September 27, 2010, 03:09 PM Elliott Mason @14 -- You can find the Les Barker Waste Not Want Not^\342~" at monologues.co.uk . Thank goodness for Google, or I'd never have gotten the end of the punch line. ^\342~"Plus much more Albert, much more Les Barer, and much, much more. --- Making Light: Open thread 147 ::: September 27, 2010, 04:17 PM abi@360, dcb@365 -- In case you didn't notice, Patrick has re-enabled the comments on the wandering Particles, since they had already attracted comments. --- Making Light: Search strings Google doesn't like ::: September 28, 2010, 01:38 PM NelC @14 -- I don't know if that's just supposed to be a joke, but my best guess on the topic is that "philip k dick" completes to philip k dick's valis philip k dick's best novel philip k dick's exegesis philip k dick's the man in the high castle philip k dick' and that dick' is not recognized as a naughty word as dick is. By the way, I'll recommend autocompletely.com as a source for a lot of autocompletion looniness. I'm having a hard time getting my mind around why won't my parakeet.... Thank goodness it's not filthy. --- Making Light: Open thread 147 ::: October 01, 2010, 02:17 PM ddb@596: The careful lack of name in all reports makes me wonder if he was under 18. You're welcome to wonder, but I don't see anything unusual about responsible news media being careful not to out someone. Given that this is a story about a man who committed suicide after being outed, I'd be amazed if they published the other victim's name. --- Article 1037906 of rec.arts.sf.fandom From: Dan Hoey Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom Subject: Re: so long, pitkin... Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2010 12:45:25 -0400 Organization: Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC Paul Dormer wrote: > There was apparently a translation of Wagner's Ring where a character is > asked what he's called. "Some call me the king of woe," is something > like the reply. But this led to the sung line, "Woe king, Woe king". Woe king in a coal mine Going down, down Woe king in a coal mine Whew, about to slip down --- Making Light: Open thread 147 ::: October 07, 2010, 12:06 PM joann @ 879 -- How can you tell? Three armrests? --- Making Light: Open thread 35 ::: October 22, 2010, 04:34 PM One-time poster, apparently non-personal URL, and no content that I can decode. --- Making Light: USA! USA! ::: October 25, 2010, 09:18 AM In a related metaphor, P J O'Rourke had a commentary today on NPR entitled Party Politics or the Politics of Partying? that likens our society (or its politics) to a sorority that he labels \316\245\316\243\316`. --- Making Light: The return of the final serial comma's vital necessity ::: October 25, 2010, 10:19 AM Marilee @ 103 -- The WashPost Manual apparently specifies that a person who is employed is an employe (with one final e). An organization so desperate to save 0.05% of their ink must be on the edge of collapse. --- Making Light: The return of the final serial comma's vital necessity ::: October 25, 2010, 10:36 AM Cynthia W @ 102 -- According to the link Neil supplied, Duvall has been married four times, first to Barbara Benjamin from 1964 until 1975. He then married Gail Youngs (1982-1986 ...), and Sharon Brophy (1991-1996).... In 2005, Duvall wed Luciana Pedraza .... so Neil's question, "Which two?" clearly refers to Duvall's exes. Perhaps, given the odd Wikipedia construction, we are supposed to count Gail and Sharon as one ex-wife. --- Making Light: Open thread 148 ::: October 25, 2010, 11:53 AM TexAnne @ 624 -- Google's English translation of the Poudre de perlimpinpin Wikipedia page renders "poudre de perlimpinpin" as either "pixie dust" or "snake oil". The discrimination may be made on the basis of capitalization, though I can't see why that would make a difference. --- Making Light: The return of the final serial comma's vital necessity ::: October 26, 2010, 09:19 AM Marilee, I used to read the WashPost a lot in the 1980s and 1990s, and I saw a dozen "employes" for "employees". And I'm pretty sure I never saw "employees". That said, they may have changed their style since, which would be a good thing. --- Making Light: The return of the final serial comma's vital necessity ::: October 26, 2010, 03:16 PM Debbie @ 130 -- She looks like a good sport, but I'm not sure how she feels about Kris and Robert. Best to avoid the subject. --- Making Light: AT&T pokes a beehive with a stick ::: November 10, 2010, 11:46 AM Julia Jones @ 175 -- sometimes they are just testing our vigilance (and trying our patience). --- Math Forum From: Dan Hoey Date: Nov 23, 2010 4:46 PM Subject: Re: Semiprimes and their triangles On 11/23/10 2:08 PM, jm bergot wrote: > Take any nonsquare semiprime p*q. From this we have the divisors 1, > p, q, p*q which can give three points on the lattice (1,p), (p,q) > and (p,p*q). From this one can create a triangle having an area > A(p*q) for each semiprime with factors p and q. > If this topic ever comes up at a cocktail party, mention that > A(26)=A(35)=54. It seems unlikely that any two other triangles will > have the same area. The three points should of course be (1,p), (p,q) and (q,p*q). And A(.) is a function of two branches, depending on the order in which we choose the factors. Or we could require p < q, but that makes the problem more restricted. Dan ---